BY MURRAY GLEFFE
CORRESPONDENT
DE PERE – The West De Pere boys’ basketball team is usually in a predicament every year to start the season.
Last year the team finished 12-11 but started 5-7. That’s because a majority of their squad was on the football team, which usually makes a deep playoff run.
This year was no different, as Jake Karchinski, Garrett Kempen, Isiah Burdette, John Edinger and Kerry Kodanko just turned in their football equipment. The WIAA mandated that they take a week off of practice, so needless to say, head coach Andy Werner’s practices have been limited with varsity players.
“It’s a good problem to have, meaning that a sport is having that much success,” said Werner. “We work around it for the first couple of weeks by bringing up junior varsity players. At times it has its challenges with certain drills, but that makes everybody better in the long run. The guys that don’t play football take charge and bring on that leadership mentality.”
One player that his hit the ground running from day one is point guard Jovan Webb.
Webb averaged eight points and two assists a game in his junior season and will be counted on to run the offense and play some off-guard as well.
“As a senior, I want to keep the team morale up and lead with communication on and off the court,” Webb said.
Burdette and Edinger are two guards that saw limited minutes last season but could carve out a big niche in 2018-19.
“Those two guys – Isiah and John – are tremendous athletes,” Werner added. “We need them to step up in the backcourt and give us extra ball handlers and shooters.”
The Phantoms’ frontcourt is stocked with returning talent, starting with Karchinski, who averaged close to 17.0 points per game.
“Once we can get these guys healthy, we should have a really good front line,” said Werner. “They are a bit banged up, but we’ll make adjustments early.”
Kempen (7.5 ppg), Kodanko (2.3 ppg), and Mueller (2.5 ppg) provide additional height, muscle and experience, and could be a load for opponents to handle.
“A lot of this group has been playing sports together for the past 10 years,” said Kempen. “We are used to the quick turnaround. I want to win conference my final season and we have the guys here to do that.”
The Phantoms bring in Casey Schwartz, Marcus Van Vreede, Jackson Wall, Payden Rusch and Mason Hoffman (to name a few) from a junior varsity team that went 16-6 last year.
“I’m excited to see those newcomers get out onto the court,” said Werner. “They did some tremendous things last year, but as everybody knows, varsity basketball is different.”
Seymour and Xavier are the early favorites to win the Bay Conference, but wissports.net has the Phantoms pegged in third place in preseason polls.
“It’ll be good to get a couple of non-conference games in before we play Seymour right out of the gates,” Werner noted. “To win the conference, you have to beat the best, and it starts with those two programs.”
For a complete roster/schedule, log on to bayconference.org.
Note: The Phantoms hired former Notre Dame Tritons head coach John Taylor as a varsity assistant.
